


Damaged

by BottleRedRosie



Category: Salvation (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24586597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BottleRedRosie/pseuds/BottleRedRosie
Summary: There was something about the way Uncle Nicholas touched his arms, the way he looked at him as if he owned him. And Darius starts to remember things he'd really rather forget. May be triggery for some readers. References to past abuse of minors. No graphic content. Spoilers up to 2.9.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	Damaged

**Author's Note:**

> Rating: R  
> Words: 1,900  
> Warnings: May be triggery for some readers. References to past abuse of minors. No graphic content.  
> Summary: There was something about the way Uncle Nicholas touched his arms, the way he looked at him as if he owned him. And Darius starts to remember things he'd really rather forget.  
> Disclaimer: Nothing is owned by me.  
> A/N: Pardon my tardiness. I've only just discovered Salvation on Netflix after doing a trawl of what I missed of Santiago Cabrera when I lost track of him between Heroes and Star Trek: Picard. This was inspired by a tiny moment in episode 2.9 The Manchurian Candidate, when Darius is speaking to Uncle Nicholas (pick an accent and stick with it, John Noble!) after the party and the camera kind of focuses in on Nicholas' hands running over Darius' arms, which I found all kinds of creepy.

**DAMAGED**

It was something about the way he'd touched him.

Uncle Nicholas' hands on his upper arms, running over the fabric of his tuxedo as he casually informed Darius he and his friends owned his soul.

He shuddered when he thought about it, and he wasn't sure why.

It was quiet in the Treehouse.

Everyone had gone home, the party and the strategy session over, gone to catch a few hours' sleep before starting this whole thing again tomorrow.

Darius didn't sleep.

He'd taken off his jacket, hung it in a closet, tried not to think about it anymore.

Uncle Nicholas touching him.

Maybe those thoughts he had sometimes, the ones he had while he was awake and the ones he sometimes had in the few short hours he slept, weren't just thoughts.

Maybe they were memories.

He shuddered anew.

Usually, he liked it when it was quiet like this, when he could be alone with his thoughts.

But tonight? Tonight he wasn't sure he wanted to be alone with his thoughts at all.

It had been chaotic lately, to say the least.

In a few short months, he'd discovered the world was ending, had met someone he might actually want to open his heart to, had almost died more times than he could count, he'd been tortured, had his company ripped from him, suddenly become Vice President of the United States of America, averted a civil war, and, oh yes, let's not forget he was now the President of the most powerful nation on Earth.

An Earth that was about to get smashed to smithereens by an asteroid.

All he needed to do now was save the world.

Easy.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

It had been a traumatic time, and he guessed it would be understandable if the stress was getting to him.

Making him believe things that weren't true. Remember things that hadn't happened.

His uncle's hands on his arms and the way he looked at him as if he owned him.

He'd felt like a little boy again. Standing in his rich uncle's house, "rescued" from an abusive alcoholic father and a life of mediocrity.

He should be grateful, they told him.

Standing in front of Uncle Nicholas in his gigantic English mansion being judged for who his father was and, he knew now, for who his mother was too.

"You look so much like her," Nicholas had told him on numerous occasions. "You have her eyes."

His uncle's hand stroking his cheek, his hair.

"She was so beautiful."

Darius hadn't known at the time, hadn't known until Nicholas had told him in an explosion of vitriol, that everything that had happened to him as a child hadn't happened because everyone had only his best interests at heart.

Nicholas hadn't taken him to save him.

He'd taken him to _have_ him.

To punish his parents for his existence. For his mother choosing his father over his uncle.

To _own_ him.

To make him his creature.

His heir.

His _thing_.

_His._

It had never occurred to Darius before, and he didn't want to think about it now.

But he could still feel his uncle's hands on his arms and it made him feel... _dirty_ somehow.

And he didn't know why.

Half-remembered moments, fleeting thoughts that may have been memories; darker thoughts, things he knew could not have possibly happened to him.

But why were they in his head if they were a figment of his imagination?

An ordinary person, Darius reasoned, would talk to someone about it. A professional. A friend. A lover.

Darius had none of those things right now and he wasn't sure he would have told them anyway.

He couldn't tell Grace. Harris might make a good confidant, but he wasn't sure he could burden a colleague that way. And Liam? Liam was the last person he could speak to about something like this.

He glanced at his phone and thought briefly about calling Detective Carter.

He had possibly dealt with... _this_ kind of thing before. Could advise him what to do.

But when he wasn't even sure anything had happened, and if it had, it had happened thousands of miles and many years away?

No. He couldn't talk to a police officer about it.

So he talked to the only person available right now.

"Tess?" he said quietly, as if waking a lover from her slumber.

"Yes, Darius?" the computer responded instantly.

He paused for a second, collecting his thoughts. Tess would wait for him. She was patient.

"What do you know about repressed memories?" he asked at length.

There was a microsecond's pause.

"You may need to be more specific, Darius," Tess replied dispassionately. "The theory of repressed memory originated with psychologist Sigmund Freud in—"

"Wait, stop, stop."

Tess stopped.

This wasn't going to help him.

"Darius?"

Darius had his head in his hands, his palms digging into his eyes.

"Yes, Tess?"

"Your heart rate and blood pressure are elevated. Would you like me to call for medical assistance?"

Darius smiled softly. He probably did need medical assistance, but not of the physical kind.

"No, I'm fine, Tess," he told the computer. "Stressful day."

"Would you like to talk about it?"

Now there was a question.

Tess was programmed to be intuitive and polite, and sometimes he forgot he was talking to an A.I.

She was also extremely discreet.

"Something happened tonight," he began slowly. "Something that almost made me remember something."

"Almost?" Tess said. "Does this relate to your question regarding repressed memories?"

"Perhaps," Darius said.

"Would it help you to tell me about it?"

Darius thought about that.

Maybe it would.

Maybe talking it through with someone who wouldn't judge him, wouldn't be disappointed in him, wouldn't think him weak, damaged…

_Damaged._

"I think my uncle might have…" he stopped.

What?

He thought his uncle might have _what_?

It was the way he'd looked at him. Proprietary. The way he'd touched him.

_I own you…_

"Darius?" Tess prompted him.

He shrugged, mentally and physically.

"It doesn't matter," he told the computer. "I'm going to try and get a couple of hours' sleep."

"Very well, Darius. Goodnight."

"Night, Tess."

And he was alone with his thoughts again.

He swung his feet up onto the couch, laid back and waited to see if Mr. Sandman planned on paying a call tonight.

He waited a while, tried not to think about things.

And then he was standing in a long hallway, much longer than he remembered from Uncle Nicholas' house in England where he grew up.

"Darius?"

His uncle was standing in a doorway at the end of the hall. He looked much younger than he did now, and Darius was looking up at him from the perspective of someone much shorter than his six feet.

A child's perspective.

"Come here, boy."

Nicholas was far away at the opposite end of the hallway.

And then he wasn't.

He was stroking Darius' cheek.

"So much like your mother. Such beautiful eyes."

Darius sucked in a breath.

_No, no, no, not really here, just dreaming…_

"I'm going to teach you everything. Business. Commerce. We're going to rule the world together."

"What if I don't want to rule the world?"

His voice sounded the same as it did now, not a child's voice.

Nicholas' expression shifted slightly. "Not your choice. You're mine now. You do as I say."

Darius wanted to go home. He wanted his mother. He wanted to be in the treehouse with Tess and Lazlo.

Nicholas' hand was on his shoulder, guiding him into the room and Darius didn't want to go.

" _Mine now. Do as I say."_

Insistent, hurting.

"No."

It was the only time Darius remembered his Uncle Nicholas hitting him.

That one time, a slap across the face and an expression utterly astounded it could ever have happened.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

His uncle on his knees in the doorway, hands on his upper arms.

Caressing.

"I'm sorry. I love you. For your mother. So like your mother."

Darius couldn't breathe.

"Let me show you how much I love you."

Hands on his arms.

Breath on his cheek.

Lips on his neck.

Darius ran.

The hallway was long, and as he ran it kept getting longer, spinning out in front of him, and his uncle was behind him, reaching out for him.

"You're mine! Do as I say! Because I love you. You're my family. My blood."

And Darius kept running until he reached a door at the opposite end of the hallway, which he ripped open, heart hammering, breathing ragged, so terrified he didn't know what to do.

Uncle Nicholas was standing in the doorway in front of him.

"I want to show you everything. Let me show you how much I love you."

Gripping his upper arms and pulling him into the room, and Darius yelled out for help but nobody heard him.

Nobody except Tess.

"Darius, your heart rate and blood pressure are still elevated. I think you were having a nightmare."

Darius opened his eyes.

He was in the Treehouse, lying on his couch.

He was alone.

He was safe.

He was alone.

"I'm alright, Tess," he told the A.I. "Bad dream."

Bad memory?

He touched his cheekbone gingerly, half expecting it to feel bruised.

But there was only the phantom memory of pain, his uncle hitting him and so shocked that he was capable of such a thing that it never happened again.

Darius could still feel the sting of it; still see the shock in his uncle's eyes.

It wasn't as if it was the first time anyone had ever hit him. His father was a mean drunk and it didn't take much to set him off.

But he hadn't expected it from Uncle Nicholas.

Uncle Nicholas who was taking him away to save him; to give him a better life.

"I'm so sorry, Darius. So sorry."

Shaky hand stroking the bruise blooming across his cheekbone.

Fingers in his hair.

Hands on his arms, touching, pulling, dragging.

"No. I don't want to."

"You're _mine_. You do as I say."

Darius swallowed and took a shaky breath, sat up and once again rested his head in his palms.

_Memories._

Waking up to find Uncle Nicholas standing over his bed, watching.

"You do as I say."

"I love you."

"Let me show you."

Hands on his upper arms, caressing.

Fingers, mouth, touching him.

Darius was in the bathroom, heaving into the sink.

He remembered Uncle Nicholas hitting him as if it happened yesterday.

The rest?

The rest he had buried, ignored, pretended hadn't happened because if it had, Darius was a victim. Weak. Damaged.

And everyone would know.

Everyone would _see_.

And then Nicholas would have won.

He gazed at his own reflection in the mirror for a moment.

_So much like your mother. So beautiful._

Pale, scared, like a little boy in a place he should never have been.

He swallowed, straightening.

He was Darius Tanz.

He ruled an empire.

He was the President of the United States of America, for crying out loud.

He refused to be a _victim_.

It wasn't his _fault._

His uncle had taken advantage of him, of the situation. Had claimed ownership, had claimed love, had claimed him as family.

But no more.

The bastard was going to pay.

Darius was going to _make_ him pay.

And that would fix everything.

**The End**


End file.
